Wet Feet?

When God spoke to Moses, it was through a brightly burning bush. For Gideon, the message came through a piece of white fleece. To Joseph, through vivid dreams. To Mary and Elizabeth through beautiful angels. To my friend, Ann, through the whisper of the wind in a wheat field. To me, through an infomercial for a blender. Or so I thought, at first.

“Get your feet wet.” The words were clear and loud. I woke up suddenly, still in my recliner with two dogs in my lap and a remote control in my hand. An infomercial was playing on TV and I squinted at the screen through tear-swollen eyes to see what the heck they were selling. Wet feet. Galoshes? Moisture-wicking socks, maybe? Hmmm…it was an infomercial for a fancy blender of some sort. Nothing about wet feet for sure. Just a dream then.

I turned the TV off, pulled the blanket up closer and lay still in the dark. I didn’t have the emotional energy to move from the chair where I had crashed after several hours of pacing the floor, crying, pray-shouting at God, who seemed determined to hide the answers I needed.

I went back to sleep. 15 minutes later, I heard it again. No TV this time. Fully awake, God’s Presence was palpable to me. I thought of Samuel, trying to go back to sleep in his room at the temple, Eli’s advice in the back of his mind… “Speak Lord, for your servant listens”… Was God, after months of tolerance for my ranting and agonizing over the utter chaos that was my life finally responding to me? And if so, what the heck did wet feet have to do with anything?

I went to my computer and pulled up Bible Gateway. I searched for “wet feet”. Nothing. So I searched for feet. Zilch. Now “wet”. Nothing that had to do with feet, but I did get the reference to Gideon and wet “fleece”. Maybe I had misheard. That would be just my luck… God speaks and I get the message wrong. No, the Holy Spirit is never vague, yet on occasion, especially in my case, the servant can be a little dense. “What are you saying, Lord?” In desperation, I typed “soles” in the search box, and BAM! There it was.

Joshua 3:13 (Amplified Bible)
“13 When the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, [come to] rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing down from above will be cut off, and they will stand in one mass [of water].”

Breathless, I read further…

15 and when those who were carrying the ark came up to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were submerged at the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all of its banks throughout the time of harvest), 16 the waters which were flowing down from above stopped and rose up in one mass a great distance away at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan. Those [waters] flowing downward toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed [the river] opposite Jericho. 17 And while all [the people of] Israel crossed over on dry ground, the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan [riverbed], until all the nation had finished crossing over the Jordan.
So, God was telling me – “If you are weary of being obsessed by your pain and immobilized by your fear, then just move. Stop telling me how you dream of serving me, and just serve. But you’re going to have to get your feet wet!”

Of course. Of course God knew that my life, like the river Jordan in Joshua 3, was absolutely at flood stage and if I remained mired where I was, I would soon be washed away, in over my head and drowning. And yet, what God was requiring of me was not to retreat from the water’s edge, but to wade right in! If I was ever going to leave the place I was in to enter a Promised Land, I had to get my feet wet. And so I have.

Wet Feet Ministry is all about taking those steps of faith, and about inviting and encouraging and stepping back to watch God empower others to do the same! So if you are torn up from the floor up, beaten down right into the ground, God wants to raise you up. Our God is a Miracle Worker and a Way Maker and absolutely nothing is impossible for you through God! This is your journey as well. Come and join us!